


Belief in a Just World

by Akua



Series: Carry On [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Amnesia, Bad Things Happen To Everyone, Drabbles, Finding Himself, Gen, Skull is Harry is Max, This will hurt, You Have Been Warned, bad things happen, bad things have already happened, everyone is Not-Henrik, experimental (ish) writing, it will hurt, memory problems, no one asked for this, or not?, the Carcassa are a subtle thing, there are less OCs than you think, there is only death here, this will inevitably crush your heart, trouble with names, using etymology wrong, word prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 23:57:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15960311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akua/pseuds/Akua
Summary: A strong belief in a just world increases “victim blaming”, because this world view denies the possibility of innocent victims with the ideology that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people.There are some things worse than death.





	Belief in a Just World

 

Abridge – to shorten by omission of words without sacrifice of sense. To shorten in duration or extent.

 

Max Mustermann… did not know how things came to be like this. It came as a bit of a revelation midway through his physical therapy. During a rest period between walking attempts, it finally hit Max just how much he was absent. Hollow, empty.

 

Like someone had abridged his life from birth to now—he was not less of a person in any form, but he lacked the substance that he had had before.

 

Perhaps had before.

 

“… Did I really… get in to a… motorcycle accident?” Max lisped, his words coming out in bursts and segments rather than as a cohesive whole. Dr. Henrik glanced up from where he sat on the floor, massaging Max’s left foot in between making Max press against his hand to strengthen the muscles. The brown haired doctor nodded, a crease forming between his eyebrows.

 

“My words… my body… all because… one thing?” Max bit his lip, eyes on the doctor’s face.

 

“Yes… one move, one small thing… it can throw a wrench in to our lives, so to speak. You took a hard slam to the head. Our brains are fragile things. And you did a lot of damage to yours. I seem to recall that your skull was deeply fractured. No one thought you were going to wake up. There was even notices to pull your life support which we were staunchly against… it’s a good thing you woke up when you did.” Henrik tapped the top of Max’s foot and then placed his hand under Max’s bare foot. Max dutifully pressed down as hard as he could, trying to move the doctor’s hand. The hand only gave a little to Max's pathetic strength, not anywhere near enough to satisfy Max.

 

Henrik tapped Max’s foot with his other hand and Max stopped with the pressure. Henrik moved and cupped the outside of Max’s left foot, and when the doctor nodded, Max did his best to press the outside of his foot against that stupid hand that never seemed to move no matter how hard he tried. After a few seconds, Henrik dropped his hand and Max groaned as he let his neck relax and his head flop back against the chair he was cradled in. He closed his eyes.

 

“It’s like… my life… my time… all gone. Nothing between… the start… and now,” Max muttered to the air, grimacing as he nipped at his own tongue through the sounding of his words.

 

The doctor hummed and got to his feet. “Well… sometimes we end—and sometimes we get second chances. If you can’t remember living, then you should make it your goal to get better so that you can live. What would you want to do?” Henrik puttered off to the side to wash his hands in the sink of the physical therapy room.

 

Max opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

 

“… I don’t… know.”

 

Compendium – a collection of concise but detailed information about a particular subject, especially in a book or other publication. A collection of things, especially one systematically gathered. A concise compilation of a body of knowledge.

 

Max was a walking Latin dictionary. Well, the ‘walking’ part was noted in the loosest sense of the word. Perhaps ‘breathing’ Latin dictionary would be a better description for his existence.

 

_Myopia_. Noun. Medical Latin from 1727, with a translation of “short sightedness,” from the Late Greek word _myopia_ which could be translated to “near-sightedness.” Further break down of the etymology brought about further iterations of ‘shutting one’s eyes’. Max detested the fact that doctors were trying to push such a word associated with eyes to become a word associated with muscle wasting.

 

“I know… you want… to sound smart—Professor. But please… sarcopenia is age… muscle wasting. Myopenia… is… a loosely agreeable term… but… please just… call it muscle… atrophy.” Max groaned out with extreme effort before he cracked open his eyes to look to the teaching Doctor and the medical students that lingered at the end of his bed like scared mice.

 

The elderly man smiled, “good morning Max, do you remember my name this time?”

 

Wow—way to dig at the man with memory problems.

 

Max squinted his eyes, “Martha?” And he chortled to himself at the look on the man’s face as his eyebrows dropped.

 

“Why wouldn’t it be myopenia, Mr. Max?” One of the only female medical students asked, toeing just a bit closer to his bed where Max was sprawled out. “Myopenia is the term associated with impaired functional capacity of the patient, and also linked with increased risk of morbidity or mortality.” The girl listed off, sounding like she was reading from a book from memory. Of course, the moment she mentioned ‘mortality’ well… she might be a compendium of book smarts… But Max?

 

“Firstly... I am not... diseased. Secondly... I don’t plan… on dying… So… it doesn’t fit. Not here… not now.”

 

Never on his back and at the mercy of others. Max didn’t want to die like this, unable to move under his own power. Max realized then and there, with the students gawking and the Professor quietly stuck between bemused and exasperated.

 

“Atrophy—from late Latin _atrophia_ , from the Greek word… _atrophos_ , meaning ill fed…” Max sighed as he closed his eyes…

 

“I really want… a hamburger.” Max murmured, eyes open and on a distant TV on the other side of the large room of curtained beds of comatose men and women. It looked rather juicy in that commercial.

 

“… is he American?”

 

Cursory –hasty, superficial, careless

 

Max hated eating in the canteen.

 

It was not a fun experience considering how hard it was to get the damn fork to his mouth. (After the first attempt at oatmeal, it was silently agreed that no truly liquid meal would be placed in front of him after the feeding tube was removed from his stomach.)

 

Max hated it when Dr. Liemen praised every little thing Max did. Gushed over his rapidly strengthening grip. Or the fact that it only took three days before Max could moderately lift his head under his own power after physical therapy started. Every little thing was praised. Three months in, and Max could still hardly feed himself. His arm was so heavy!

 

But it wasn’t really the fact that eating, the act of feeding himself, was unbearably hard.

 

… it was the cursory looks people kept sending him. The swift flutter of eyes that he always saw.

 

They were staring at his face.

 

(Cursory, from the Late Latin ‘ _cursorius_ ’, meaning ‘hasty, of a race or running’. The mental image of everyone’s eyeballs falling out and going to run in races amused Max enough that he didn’t try to throw anything with what little strength he has.)

 

One look was never enough once their eyes caught the Glasgow grin that wrecked his cheeks.

 

Max just wished they would blatantly stare, get their fill—and ignore him. It was the darting of the whites of their eyes that always made him itch, even though he wouldn’t be able to say exactly why.

 

Curtail – shorten or abridge the duration of something. To limit or restrict, keep in check.

 

The word ‘curtail’ comes from a change in an old French word of ‘ _courtault_ ’, which means that ‘which has been shortened’. Where the segment ‘ _court_ ’ comes from pulling together the Latin word ‘ _curtus'_ with the ending of _‘-ault’._

 

Reciting word etymology was soothing. Especially after that bookish medical student had taken to dropping off related textbooks of English vocabulary. (English, which he could apparently read and speak fluently like a native. Which was better than his French, if he had to say so…. But perhaps German was his first language? He wielded it rather well…)

 

This nice think-habit was good, especially when he was firmly ordered on bed rest and had his legs strapped down.

 

(He hadn't listened one time and nearly fractured his foot when falling... it was one time! No, his executive functioning process wasn't impaired!)

 

They thought they could curtail his plans on getting out of the hospital as soon as possible… Max wasn’t pushing himself too hard! He was just… getting annoyed with his extended stay as a conscious man. But even with his legs strapped down, Max flexed his toes and ankles at his leisure. Lifted his legs as high as he could—not able to hold himself to the limit of the straps, only just barely bringing his heels from the mattress…. But the move used his core muscles.

 

Max was all for the exercises that would let him go free.

 

He wasn’t pushing himself too hard! It was the doctors that weren’t pushing hard enough!

 

Max had to get out!

 

(Why…? Well, Max didn’t rightly know. But anywhere was better than white walls and pale sheets and endless stares at his face.)

 

Syllabus – a summary of topics which will be covered during an academic course.

 

Max was proud of the eventual pay off of his tiny exercises. Especially the first time he was able to actually sit up under his own power and tap the hands of the doctor helping him rebuild the core muscles of his body.

 

It had taken some terribly whining complaining and having to steel himself for confrontation before Max had been able to get a physical therapist that would push him. A new therapist that he could unfortunately never remember the name of (and had called the poor man ‘Henrik’ enough that the man just let it slide now), along with a new syllabus.

 

Syllabus, a word with a terrible history of existing because of a misprint. A misreading of the word ‘ _sittybis_ ’ or ‘ _sillybis_ ’ as ‘ _syllabis_ ’ was wrongly related to Greek instead of Ancient Greek _sittúba_ , which could be translated in to ‘table of contents’, which was an apt meaning.

 

Max grinned up at not-Henrik, “say, we getting that much closer to me getting to sit outside for lunch?”

 

Not-Henrik smiled, “is that your current motivation?”

 

“Yeah, let’s go with that.” It was a lot better than saying his current motivation was to gloriously escape.

 

“Then when you can sit up on your own without falling over for, say… thirty minutes? I’ll take you to eat outside on the benches. Better hurry before winter hits.” The black haired men grinned.

 

Max rolled his eyes and struggled to sit up enough to tap those hands hovering in the air above him.

 

Synopsis – abridgement, abstract, conspectus, outline, overview, summary.

 

“I am the sum of my parts,” Max dutifully replied to the therapist across from his seat in the cafeteria. The woman was a nice lady, but Max wished that she would stop forgetting her name tag so he could look at it when he spoke to her. Her name, much like the rest of the staff, never completely stuck in his head no matter how much he had tried.

 

His fine motor skills were still terribly sketchy at best. That therapist was having him write letters with a fat wooden stick in kinetic sand. And even with a large space it was disgustingly difficult.

 

Of course, the one time he got so frustrated at people staring at him while he had that he gathered enough strength to throw a glass cup at someone’s head—well, within minutes he had been sat before this mental health professional and expected to express all of his inner pain and gloom.

 

Max did not have enough of a self to express much of anything, let alone try to explain what he had actually felt at that moment. He didn’t know if it was frustration or anger or pain or… well, anything, really.

 

But if there was one thing he would agree with the lady, it was the synopsis of his life painted on his skin. The scars weren’t from the accident that had taken so much from him. No, he had actually come out of the accident relatively unbloodied (he had seen pictures). No, none of these scars had come from that.

 

While suffering an unfortunate case of food poisoning and being bedridden for two days, Max had made a friend in the emergency ward. Who had had enough free time and too much morbid knowledge to correctly identify the tools used to make his scars.

 

(The Glasgow smile. Someone had used a sharp utility knife on Max’s skin. The cut was neat and the scar was a bit faded with age. It had been a smooth cut. The person that did it hadn’t hesitated one bit.)

 

Max’s body was a synopsis of a life overflowing with pain.

 

Sometimes he could swear his body was actually in pain to the touch. And other times he was numb.

 

“I am a whole person,” Max took in a deep breath and let it out, glancing through his eyelashes at the lady once more as she scribbled something on to her notepad with a curve to her cheeks that said she was trying to suppress a smile to keep some kind of professional demeanor on. She looked rather proud of him.

 

Max just didn’t have the spine to tell her that these sessions were bullshit.

 

… besides, wasting an hour a day with a nice lady wasn’t so bad when all he had waiting for him after physical therapy were books that the bored medical student left behind for him.

 

Yes, his life at the hospital was a synopsis of Max himself.

 

Ultimately empty inside.

 

(But grinning—even if it was forced. Who could tell the difference? Could even Max realize it?)

 

Terse – brief, concise, to the point

 

Terse. From the French _‘ters’_ , which mean ‘clean’. And with the French being from the Latin _‘tersus’_ , which translated in to a general meaning of being neat of cleansed. At some point in the fine history of words, terse had changed in use from being associated with clean, and associated itself as another word synonymous with ‘abrupt’ and ‘succinct’.

 

“You’re such a nerd,” chuckled the man that handed him a soaped wash cloth.

 

Maybe Max would have been humiliated, but after a year of slowly being given the autonomy to clean himself as his body strengthened—well, he was just glad someone was there in case he fell and smacked his head hard enough to send himself in to another coma.

 

“And you’re probably a pervert,” Max jibbed back as he scrubbed at his arms.

 

The man—old, fading to white once ginger haired, but sturdy and strong in age—just sat back in his little plastic chair and raised an eyebrow. “And you’re a bit old for adult diapers.”

 

“… touché.” Max murmured as he eyed the man, another not-Henrik. The terse word was the only thing that hovered in the silence as Max finished scrubbing at his arms and then started the slow process of scrubbing his own back under supervision.

 

“So, next week I get to try and stand while I shower. Are you ready?” Max asked as he gave his arms a rest and lifted his face up to the spray.

 

“Boy, ain’t nobody ready for you.” The man shook his head, “hardly a little more than a year and you’re sitting up on your own for hours. Ain’t nobody was ever ready for you.”

 

Max smiled to himself and opened an eye to look to the man who was comfortable to be around. Thankfully he didn’t have a beard.

 

“Good—I like to surprise.” Max decided then and there.

 

“Is that so? Well, not everyone’ll appreciate such a thing.” The man spoke cautiously, his blue-blue eyes focused on Max with such a look that suggested caution.

 

Max decided then and there that he wasn’t exactly the cautious type either and shrugged. Since his rest was done, he dutifully got back to scrubbing at his legs. Making sure to clean between the toes. “Say Henrik, where did you get those scars, anyway?”

 

Not-Henrik smiled wryly with sad-angry eyes, “wolf attack.”

 

“What… _really_? Whoa, he must have been humongous!” Max’a attention immediately snapped back to the light scars on the man’s face. Mostly hidden by greying ginger stubble.

 

“Yeah… biggest sonovabitch you’d ever seen. Meanest one, too.” Not-Henrik let out a long breath and shook his head. His eyes drifting down to the hands linked together over his stomach.

 

“Well, come on—tell me the story.” Max leaned a little bit closer, dropping the cloth to the floor of the shower stall and focusing on not-Henrik with his usual too much focus. Eventually those blue-blue eyes lifted just enough to lock eyes with Max.

 

Not-Henrik, in the end, kept to a few terse words. “Just a ‘wrong place, wrong time’ kind of moments, son.”

 

Max stuck out his tongue like he had seen the teenagers on the television due and picked up the cloth. “Fine, you’ll tell me one day!”

 

“Well, you are the adventurous sort. Maybe you’ll figure it out.” Not-Henrik shrugged.

 

Max paused, “… I’m adventurous?”

 

Not-Henrik hummed. “Don’t forget to wash behind the ears.”

 

“They’re not even dirty!” Max stuck out his tongue.

 

Max scrubbed behind his ears anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> ... so hey, I'm studying vocabulary for a super life changing exam and it turned in to this. (I'm not dead, but maybe dying a little inside as per usual?) 
> 
> No one asked for this. But here are the life and times of Max, the John Doe of Germany. Relatively linear, but not always connected. 
> 
> ... I've gotten a bit of writers block and I'm trying to work through it by constructing a Skull I can be proud of. I want to Flesh a character out. And this seems like a fun exercise in the creation of self. 
> 
> (And perhaps I wanted to write the aftermath of time spent in a coma, just because. It's certainly not a pretty nor an easy thing. Remember, Harry technically has magic being thrown at him to accelerate his healing...)
> 
> (The life and times of Max Mustermann. The Epic of Skull the Immortal Stuntman, the man whom the Grim Reaper hates. Two seemingly unconnected entities, all wrapped up in a magical package.) 
> 
> (And somewhere, Harry Potter fits in to the spaces left unfilled.)


End file.
